3d ago

Trump Takes the Dumbest Tariff Plunge

www.wsj.com Opinion | Trump Takes the Dumbest Tariff Plunge

He says the 25% levies on Mexico and Canada will begin Tuesday. Stocks fall.

President Trump likes to cite the stock market when it’s rising as a sign of his policy success, so what does he think about Monday’s plunge? The Dow Jones Industrial Average took a 650-point header after he announced that he’ll hit Mexico and Canada on Tuesday with 25% tariffs.

Mr. Trump said at the White House there was “no room left” to negotiate with the two American trade treaty partners. Some of his smarter advisers have been hoping he’d start renegotiating the USMCA and delay the tariffs. But Mr. Trump wants tariffs for their own sake, which he says will usher in a new golden age.

We’ve courted Mr. Trump’s ire by calling the Mexico and Canada levies the “dumbest” in history, and we may have understated the point. Mr. Trump is whacking friends, not adversaries. His taxes will hit every cross-border transaction, and the North American vehicle market is so interconnected that some cars cross a border as many as eight times as they’re assembled.

MBFC
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18 comments

Excellent to see the media is still allowing this guy to say that we had a bad trade deal while ignoring that the bad trade deal he’s talking about is the one he created and signed during his first term.
- The best deals.

He's purposely trying to take money out of Americans pockets. If people are poor and struggling to provide their own basic necessities, how are they supposed to fight back against his fascist regime?
- Also how are the tariffs supposed to ”usher in a new golden age” if nobody can afford to buy imported goods?

Got to take everyone’s money to make them desperate enough to go work the fields and replace the lost workforce we are deporting.

And this is only the beginning. Trump delays surely allowed smarter people than him some precious time to think the next move. Canada and Mexico will hit back hard, with accuracy. The higher social classes across the three countries are gonna be affected too. What friends do the USA have left? Not Europe, not North America, certainly not Russia. USA, Israel, and Argentina, I guess, for now. And the latter is crumbling fast since the $LIBRA scandal.
- the only thing Russia wants from America, is for America to get out of the way, and in that regard. Russia has gotten almost everything it wanted. The only steps left is for both the US to leave NATO, and for NATO to disband entirely, or otherwise remove Britain and France from the rest of the security strategy.
  Russia is an old country, in that it still thinks in terms of Empire of the 1700s. They are a dying country and the only way they can remain relevant is by having half of europe enslaved. they're pretty much screwed regardless now because they're militarily spent, but even so they will still try to attain that goal by nuclear threats and by regulatory capture of other countries by way of corrupt gangster politicians like Fico and Orban.
  Russia couldnt care less what America does once its out of the way, whether its following them behind like a pathetic Mini-Me, or if they eviscerate themselves in a civil war, Russian Fascists would gladly shoot American Fascists in the back of the head given the chance.
  
  Yeah, I don't feel animosity against Russia or Russians as you do, but they certainly could manage better without the USA snooping around, which was my point.

Rises in the stock market are caused by Republicans, falls and crashes are always the fault of the Democrats...
- Uff people downvoting an obvious ironic remark. I'm worried about the lack of ability to detect irony and sarcasm in comments. To be fair, some people drop this type of comment as a statement, but still...
  
  The "/s" mark is a problem. As a sarcastic, marking your sarcasms doesn't feel right. I think it is another consequence of the karma system, i.e. people put the mark so people don't downvote them for not understanding that we think alike about something. I tell you guys, all of you, just ditch the voting system, don't be a captive of judgment of your ideas!
  
  Maybe the downvoters are Trumpists and don't like their dumb textbook answers being stolen!

so far

18 comments